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[Page 3]
& sent to the Front or else be given the opportunity of having a smack at the Turks. Now I will endeavour to give you a brief account of things from the day I determined to join up to to day. About a fortnight or so previous to my enlisting there were a lot of rumors going around the camp I was then in, to the effect that the Australian Govt. had decided to raise an Expeditionary Forse to assist England & was asking for volunteers. That evening we happened to have a few newspapers brought in from town & in one of them I saw the Govt. notice asking men to Volunteer & asking men who could not come down to Sydney in person to write to Sydney giving all particulars with regard to age, height, occupation etc.
Well I decided I would write down & on the following morning did so. About 9 or 10 days later I received a reply telling me I had been selected to undergo a medical examination with regard to fitness, & requesting me to attend at the Victoria Barracks, Paddington, Sydney, at my earliest opportunity & and there report myself to a certain Colonel Antill (the recruiting officer). Upon receiving the reply I took it to the foremen (or as he is called in Australia "Ganger") showed it to him & asked him to arrange for me to receive whatever money was due to me a soon as possible. He told me that there were about 6 or 7 others of his gang going down to Sydney to enlist & said thet I would be able to draw my pay early the next morning. At the time I was working on one of the Govt railway duplication & all I had to do was to go down to the head
[Lieut. Colonel John Macquarie Antill went on to command at Gallipoli]